Voice of the People, Sep. 24

September 24, 2012

School miracles. (Jennifer M. Kohnke)

School miracles

Measuring teacher performance is a little like judging woodworkers without considering the quality of their raw material, or judging a coach without considering the candidates he's able to recruit. It's a good idea to install a metric, but it has to be done fairly and carefully, not hastily by people with little idea about the job's many challenges.

As soon as we have an accurate measure of student attitude and readiness, we will have the makings of a wonderful tool to rank our teachers, namely, a formula that measures a teacher's efforts against the real potential for academic achievement. No matter how good the teacher, he or she should not be faulted for fighting a losing battle against all the other factors working against his or her efforts, including students with dismal home lives too hungry to pay attention in class.

People want schools to accomplish miracles; they are, but no one should be faulted for failing to succeed against all odds.

— Tony Somera, Champaign

Miracle-makers

If the Chicago Board of Education feels that principals should have the authority to fire underperforming teachers in their schools, then teachers should have the same authority to "fire" underperforming students in their classrooms.

Why should principals be given the advantage to improve their evaluation while teachers must perform miracles to improve their own?

— Otto Dolansky, Berwyn

Support CPS

Bring on the charter schools? This is what your editorial board is advocating for our city (Editorial, Sept. 19)? Your board members should be ashamed. Supporting schools that operate outside the rules, with no checks and balances, is not going to save public education in the city. You should find a way to support our teachers in our public education system.

— Stephanie Kuenn, Chicago

Parochial teachers

We are so tired of listening to teachers whine and complain about their jobs. The teachers we should be praising are the parochial schoolteachers. They probably work longer hours per week, they start the school year much earlier than the public schools, and they earn much less in salaries and benefits. They do not have all the holidays the Chicago Public Schools teachers have.

My husband and I each worked two jobs to have our children receive this wonderful education; we thank the parochial teachers so much.

— Eileen Jacobellis, Chicago

Wasted funds

Who cares about the Chicago Public Schools budget and students' education? Surely not the entities who paid for the anti-teacher commercials during the strike or the mayoral commercials post-strike. That money should have been spent on the children.

— Patricia Bush, Chicago

Mayor's failure

The mayor failed our children; he should have used the teachers' pay raise as a bargaining chip. He gave them a guaranteed pay raise, but he did not get a guarantee that the kids would get a better education.

— Carl Bogaard, Chicago

Strong unions

"Why Illinois is so broke" (Perspective, Sept. 20) was an excellent description of our state's dilemma! Teachers, firefighters and police officers are Illinois employees with strong unions to do public relations for them on how hard they work and how they always need more money (no matter what state the economy is in). They are the only ones who have the opportunity of holding the state ransom for a raise.

The rest of us are grateful for a job and have no strong union to speak for us.

— Jonathan Bruns, Clarendon Hills

Higher taxes

Anyone who pays Cook County taxes must realize that the pay increases for the teachers means higher real estate taxes.

This also means rent increases to cover owners' higher taxes.

We cannot do without instruction for the students of Chicago, but we also should not be intimidated by mob (union) rule.

At a time when so many citizens are feeling an extreme economic squeeze, they will be forced to pay higher taxes to fund a system that educates the schoolchildren with a high rate of underachievement.

— Arnold Krinski, Mundelein

City's loss

Rahm Emanuel had a chance at greatness and blew it. Now he's just another run-of-the-mill Chicago politician who allowed an out-of-control union to wreak financial and procedural havoc on the city and its citizens.